precious fragmentation on big bang theory

the  big bang theory episode the precious fragmentation is an homage to the lord of the rings trilogy and has an incredible amount of vocabulary that i have talked about in classes lately.

wolowitz in a geek moment with an alf doll

last week, the expression pulled muscle, a muscle that tears due to overextension or overuse, came up in a class.   at the beginning of the precious fragmentation, leonard is carrying a box of collectibles that the group bought upstairs to their apartment and asks why he always is in charge of the heavy lifting.  sheldon explains that he (sheldon) is the smart guy, howard is the funny one and raj is the foreign guy which makes leonard the muscle  (the strong one) by default.  leonard warns that if they had to go up another floor in their apartment building that he’d be a pulled muscle.

popeye says musskulz when referring to his muscles, but if you do it, people will think you are ripping off popeye

an important pronunciation note: do not pronounce the c in muscle.  pronounce muss-ull

a believable hobbit?

blackmailed refers to a victim of extortion.  in precious fragmentation, howard suggests a scenario where they give the ring back to lord of the rings director peter jackson in return for his being cast as a hobbit in jackson’s next movie. at 7:30 in the episode leonard rejects the idea saying

we’re not blackmailing peter jackson

sheldon gets a little too geeked out about the ring

finally, one of the things beyoncé says she would do if she were a boy is

drink beer with the guys and chase after girls

this line was the motivation for some discussion in one of my classes about the expression cut to the chase which means get to the point, or the interesting, exciting or crucial part of a description.  if you were describing a movie the idea would be to skip the details and go directly to the action, car chases for example.

at 10:50 in the big bang episode, raj brings his laptop to lunch to introduce his cousin venkatesh (a mumbai lawyer) by video phone.  venkatesh attempts to legally represent raj’s claim on the ring, and asks for two kawasaki jet skis in exchange for raj surrendering his stake.   the other friends reject this initial offer, and raj’s cousin answers that they should cut to the chase and find a quick compromise.

mel gibson didn’t even need a car in the first lethal weapon movie to chase the enemy.  just a pair of white high-tops, a machine gun and the dog-like mentality that made his riggs character famous

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